II.

"Took a heavy fall there, didn't she?"

"Yeah."

Voices mingled around a cold room as Bea opened her eyes. She heard the clicks of a heart monitoring device somewhere in the distance, and shut herself back into the darkness. A figure hovered dark above the blinding light and spoke.

"Are you alright, Ms. Klugh?"

"Neit." She said at once, finding a bearing in the room. She was alone. Tilting her head upward, a wave of nausea hit her, tumbling her backwards on to the platform where she lay.

"You could have been killed." The voice said, carrying a soothing softness with it. The sound of stretching latex made her cringe.

"Who are you?"

"That is the mighty question." The light fell back onto the place of Richard Alpert.

"Richard--? I thought-"

"Mikhail? He's still gone, Bea."

Bea's heart sunk silently into her chest. She sat up in the dharma station, blinking around. "What happened?" She finally asked, leaning to him as thought provoked it to be an intimate secret.

"The survivors, Bea. One of them got to you before we could." Richard gave her one of his looks. It was nestled somewhere between concern and question.

"Hugo?"

"No, Bea, what difference does it make?"

"I want to know who almost killed me out on that dock!" The words shattered through the room. At once, Bea shut her eyes, folding back into the silent conversion of herself. She raised eyes at Richard. "Who was it?"

"Kate."

"Hm." Kate. The angry one. It made sense. Ms. Austen had given her many looks on the way to the docks. It made perfect timing, in a way. Had they been any sooner in thier quest, the survivors may have had a stronghold.

'She know's your beard's fake, Tom.' She had said. Tom gave her a grimace. 'Thanks for telling them my name, Bea.'

And then, nothing. She remembered hands, flailing arms, and then murmuring- over what, she was unsure. Then, a boat sped away somewhere in the distance. She could smell the salt of the ocean creeping up past the halfdecayed boards of the dock. High tide was rolling in, and they had to move fast. A heavy trunk of an arm folded around her waist, carrying her sluggishly into the jungle, and her conscience fell away.

"Don't worry, we've got them now." Richard said, and Bea blinked her eyes, sore from the bright light of the room. "The flame." She said suddenly, with obvious epiphany.

"What about it?" Colleen asked, something menacing in her eyes. "No one goes there anymore."

"It's our only source of communication with the mainland." Bea pressed. "Have you ever realized how close it is to 815's camp? It's a mile from the beach, at least."

"What are you trying to say?" Richard inquired, taking a seat with all seriousness.

"What I'm saying, Richard is that--someone ought to be checking on it, don't you think? If the survivors ever-"

"They wouldn't." Danny said suddenly, feircely.

"You underestimate them."

"Oh?" Colleen began. "I think not. We've got their best at the Hydra. You warned the fat one yourself."

"I did?" The memories came pouring back as she remembered. Hugo. Harsh words. It seemed a lifetime away, yet she could believe it had only happened a mere hour ago.

"I want to make sure no one is closing on the barriers."

"Bea, I appreciate your concern, but--" A mysterious smile stretched across Richard's youthful face. "I seriously doubt that anyone could find the Flame."

Bea gave him a full-witted smile. "I've been to the Flame, Richard. I know. If the survivors ever found it- they could easily-"

"The flame is the last thing on our minds." Colleen stated, starting out the door, Danny quickly behind her.

She gathered her wits and spoke again, grasping at her wrists as though they had been bound, but were now free.

"Then let me go." She could feel the invisible binds as she looked up to see Robert close, Danny looking her up and down with a general dislike, and Colleen, striking her at every angle with ice stares.

It made her think of Kiev again.

**4815162342**

"You are to be stationed in Kabul three weeks from today. Afterwards, you will proceed onto the conflict, which will immediately-"

The door of the recruitment office opened, and a sweaty-faced officer stormed in.

"Bakunin. Now." The officer fixed a stare on Mikhail, picked the young man up onto his feet, and whipped him out the door of the office. The dim glow of lights set along a path in the distance, and the Officer shuddered.

"It's the villagers, coming for my monster." He said quietly, taking a glance at the young man who still carried the pliers he had jockeyed the C4 with in his back pocket.

"Officer, it is impossible that they-"

"They have no idea, Bakunin. Go out there to meet them. Tell them that you are the only doctor this soviet station has." He offered Mikhail an authoritive smile. "They'll welcome you like a hero, to bury thier dead and fix thier wounds."

"I'm....not a doctor, sir." Mikhail began, but the officer thumped him on the back, and then pressed him outside into the cold spring air. He leaned on the concrete blocks of the station, wating. Waiting was such a horrible thing. It was death, postponed. Life in detour. And as the glow crept down the valley and up, closer to the station, Mikhail Bakunin had to wait, finding a backstory behind it all- finding a way to fix the cuts he had inflicted and bury the ones he had killed.